Pornhub, the world’s biggest pornography site, has agreed to introduce age verification checks in the UK by this time next month in a bid to stop children from accessing adult content.
Aylo, the website’s parent company, confirmed it would introduce “government-approved age assurance” technology on to its websites by July 25.
On Thursday, Ofcom said that over a dozen major porn sites agreed to implement the checks. The regulator has demanded sites introduce “highly effective” age checks.
Some of the possible measures may include asking for photo ID or using a smartphone app to estimate age.
Previous checks, like tick-box-style age declarations, will be prohibited.
Oliver Griffiths, Ofcom’s group director of online safety, said: “For too long, children have been only a click away from harmful pornography online.
“Now, change is happening. These age checks will bring pornography into line with how we treat adult services in the real world, without compromising access and privacy for over-18s.”
Ofcom said it had found that 8% of children aged between 8 and 14 visited a porn site each month. Around 3% of eight to nine-year-olds reported visiting pornography sites.
It found that 19% of boys aged 13 to 14 used pornography sites, compared to 11% of girls the same age.
Ofcom has already ordered online pornography publishers to introduce age checks, but the new checks will also apply to sites that allow self-published adult content & social media.
It comes after Aylo blocked access to Pornhub in France and several US states over what the Canadian business claimed were overly intrusive or risky age checks demanded by politicians.
The Pornhub owner said it had “publicly called for effective and enforceable age assurance solutions that protect minors online, while ensuring the safety and privacy of all users”
It said: “The United Kingdom is the first country to present these same priorities demonstrably. Our conversations with Ofcom have been constructive and solution-focused.”
Aylo didn’t say what type of checks it would introduce next month.
It had said that checks proposed in France, which would have required an ID or credit card, represented a privacy risk. It blocked access to the site in the country earlier this month, although Pornhub returned to the country last week after a court suspended new rules on age verification.
